Monthly Archives: March 2018

How to tame the negative-self talk

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Self-compassion is the ability to be kind with the stream of negative thoughts and emotions that we experience. Most of us have thoughts like, “I’m not good enough.”, “I am a failure.”, “I am a bad person”, which lead to feeling tensed, irritated, defensive and stressed.

If you are like me, you may want to be grounded in a relaxed and joyful state of being. But how can we make the transition from a “stressed most of the time” state to a “relaxed and enthusiastic” state? Self-compassion can create the bridge between these two states.

How could self-compassion become a habit of the mind? 

I have practiced short self-compassion meditations on and off, for 2 years now. For me, being self-compassionate is about allowing myself to feel bad when things seem to fall apart. How do I do that?

1. By accepting that my ego wants me to survive and succeed. As a result, it doesn’t like it when there is some evidence pointing in the direction of failure.
2. By reminding myself that my ego is like a little child that needs patience until the day when it grows old enough to understand that the way it perceives the experiences does not reflect the ultimate truth.

Take this example: you are working on a project you care about. At one point, your boss or a colleague gives you negative feedback about your work. Self-compassion comes in to soothe the “I feel like a failure” thinking. By paying close attention to how the negative thoughts are taking form in your mind, you can learn to reformulate them so that you create a shift from negative thinking to constructive thinking.

Instead of thinking, “I feel like a failure now.”, you can overwrite that thought with “Now I can see the work I have done from my boss’s perspective.” This is the tipping point when we can take some distance from the bad feelings, from taking personally the perceived critique to “There are different opinions on my work.”

Everyone has an ego who wants them to succeed and an unique way of perceiving. Let’s be compassionate with all the suffering that results when 2 or more perceptions seem to collide.

 

 

 

Thoughts on the Meaning of Being Together

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One month after father’s physical death, I had a strong impulse to write down some thoughts on what it means to be together. The words are failing me, but I still wanted to give myself a chance to express how I feel about the continuation of strong bonds beyond physical death.

Last December, I was in the office of one of father’s oncologists. I wanted to hear about advanced cancer treatments. At one point, the doctor stopped for few seconds, looked at me sternly and said, “You need to cut the ropes”.

Despite the sting in the heart, I understood the doctor meant well. In her world, cutting the ropes was the best thing for me to do.

But in my world, how could I conceive of cutting the ropes? How could I stop trying to help the man with whom I’ve had a strong bond ever since I’ve known myself. Metastasised colon cancer does not give much room for hope for survival. But I wanted to hope we can find a treatment to extend my father’s life.

Cutting the ropes was not something I was ready to do.

A few weeks later, my father’s illness advanced. I took a break from everything I do in order to be by his side. In one of his lasts days, I whispered in his ear, “We are together. I am with you.”

Ever since, the words, “We are together”, have been on my mind. It’s been four weeks since my father passed away. Would there be another way of being together?

I am now stepping in the territory of metaphysical assumptions about bonds between people who are living and people who pass away.

So, here I go. When you love someone so much, it’s not possible that the love stops when the other person passes away or when you yourself stop existing from the physical world.

Father and I can’t communicate the way we have been used, in this physical reality. We can’t talk on the phone, every day. We can’t have dinner at the same table, in my childhood home. We can’t spend holidays together, the way we used to. And yet, somewhere at another dimension of reality, the pure love must continue and connect us.

Cutting the ropes is not what I want. Instead, I choose to have a better understanding on how our connection can live on. In the last four weeks, I’ve had more dreams about father than ever before. Most of those dreams seem so real.

Maybe dreams hold the key to understanding that being together doesn’t mean, exclusively, two persons in the same physical space. Maybe there is some other unconscious part of ourselves that travels at night and experiences, in a similar way the conscious self experiences when we are awake.

Most certainly, father will live in my memories and the memories of those who love him. Other than that, could meditation and imagination nurture the love between father and myself? In my imagination, I want to believe that a part of myself keeps company to him in whatever reality he is now living.

Physical death can’t be the end.